


Deserving

by iamfitzwilliamdarcy



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Gen, More like background Zuko but still
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-24
Updated: 2014-08-24
Packaged: 2018-02-14 11:55:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 745
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2190798
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iamfitzwilliamdarcy/pseuds/iamfitzwilliamdarcy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Iroh lets Ozai know what he thinks of him and his son. Set during Book 3.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Deserving

He came to visit Iroh in his cell nearly a month into his imprisonment, walking with all the confidence of a man who knew he’d won. Won what, Iroh had never been particularly sure; Ozai’s appetite for power had grown more insatiable each year, which could never lead to a permanent victory.

He was Iroh’s first visitor next to Zuko, who came in sporadically, secretively, and always left Iroh far more hurt than any prison chains could have. He cried for his nephew after each visit, and was sure each time that he was the only one who would ever shed tears over Zuko’s confusion and anger. 

He kept Zuko in the front of his mind as Ozai approached. It wasn’t hard; Zuko had taken after his father in looks. But where Zuko had come to his cell broken and lost, Ozai came to gloat.

“It seems I have won, brother,” he said, smiling as he towered over Iroh.

“You speak too soon and too surely,” Iroh said. “Perhaps you have had a small victory, but it is not so easily set and comes at a great price.” His voice was hoarse from disuse, but while Zuko, though he didn’t know it, needed Iroh’s silence during his visits, he also needed Ozai to hear these words.

Ozai laughed. “All victories come with a price, and I am willing to sacrifice to achieve the glory I deserve. Though,” he tilted his head, considering Iroh, “I see no great loss in my latest accomplishments. The Avatar is destroyed, and in the process I have recovered my son from his traitor uncle. Where, exactly, is this great loss of mine?”

“Your son, of course.”

Ozai blinked, surprised, and Iroh allowed himself a small smile at derailing his brother’s gloating. “I just said I have regained my son,” Ozai said, recovering himself. “Hardly the same as losing him.”

Iroh looked up and caught Ozai’s gaze. Holding it, he said, “Your son is the most honorable man I know.”

“He betrayed you!” Ozai protested.

“I know,” Iroh said, voice steady though sad. “He is devoted to you. He desires nothing more than your love, which you have deprived him of his entire life and will never be able to give him. You will continue to cast him to the side because he means nothing to you when he cannot contribute to your search for power and glory. You would ignore his skills in swordplay--,”

“His firebending talent is far more important!” Ozai interrupted, but Iroh raised his voice and spoke over him.

“And his kind, generous heart you would destroy and replace with bitterness and despair and hatred.”

“His weaknesses, you mean,” Ozai snarled. “They will be stamped out and he will be a prince the Fire Nation will be proud to serve. 

“But you won’t succeed,” Iroh continued. “You have tried to destroy Zuko, but he is by far the most resilient of us. You will drive him away, but you will not destroy him. Have you really no idea the gift you have been given with Zuko? A son, talented and loving, devoted only to his father, desperate to please him. And you do not care. Many of grieved over the loss of such a boy.”

“Zuko is not Lu Ten,” Ozai hissed, long fingers reaching out to grip the bars. “And he is no longer yours to indoctrinate. I have taken him back from you and your influence.

“You abandoned him with me when you banished him,” Iroh said. “He was not yours to break, but you tried to anyway. He was not mine to take, but you did anyway. You destroy all that you touch. I will not let you destroy him.”

Iroh easily dodged the flames Ozai shot his way. “You are mistaken, brother. Do you really think you have much of a say in this? If you’ve forgotten, you are the one in the prison cell, childless, while I am the ruler of a great nation and father to the prince you have attempted to lay claim to.”

He turned on his heel, his red robes swishing around his ankles, tall and straight, every inch the Fire Lord. Iroh remembered Ozai younger, clinging to his own robes.

“You will die in this prison, humiliated and hated,” Ozai said. “You won’t win.”

Iroh waited until Ozai had opened the door before saying, “You never deserved him.”

The door slammed shut, and Iroh was left alone.


End file.
